and soon i'll see my honeysuckle girl
by ribbonsandrags
Summary: "Amelia and I lived within five blocks of each other and neither of us knew of the others existence for the first fourteen years of our lives." Alice is a stuttering, homely daydreamer. Amelia is a naive and beautiful dunce. School AU, Nyotalia USUK


Okay, this is chapter one of what will hopefully be a multichapter fic (oh god what am i doing starting a brand new one while I have a work in progress oh god). The main characters are their nyotalia versions in this case. Some of the regular hetalia versions will be mentioned later on, but the two main character's are Alice and Amelia (America and England's genderbends). This fic has nothing to do with the country personification and instead focuses in on their personalities and them in a school environment. It is told by Alice (FemEngland) in first person pov. Please no flaming if you don't like nyotalia or lesbian pairings, if you don't like simply don't read it. Reviews are appreciated and I hope you enjoy this!

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><p>Amelia and I lived within five blocks of each other and neither of us knew of the other's existence for the first fourteen years of our lives. We lived two lives completely separate from one other until our first year of high school.<p>

She wore simple shorts and shirts and played hide and seek with her sister in the backyard. She chipped a front tooth when she was ten. Her father filled up a purple plastic swimming pool with hose water and let the two wade in it, the sun painting Amelia gold and Madeline rose. She ran and skipped and played Hopscotch and Double Dutch and listened to her father tell them stories before they slept. Her father put her in softball, then kickball, then a whole slew of sports.

I was a different case. My upbringing consisted of starched blouses and pleated wool skirts, a sore scalp from my mother's rough hand as she yanked my hair up into two pigtails. I remembered cursive and arithmetic, spelling and science. I spent many months in the hospital from a stomach illness that left me lanky and thin and pale all over. My father tried to get me to play outside and be just like the other children, but my body wouldn't have it. Instead he tried to make me happy by buying me things, lovely things. Socks with little frills and dolls with hair like silk and the loveliest unicorn figurines. Those were my favorite, he bought them for me when he came back from his trips. Some were carved from wood and carefully painted, others were blown from glass and shone in the sunlight. My favorite was the one he brought me from his trip to France, a glittering crystal unicorn with a mane made from gold and little gold horseshoes on its hooves. I named her Lucile, and I made up little stories in my head of the adventures we could have together.

I never knew of Amelia's existence while I thought of Lucile, and Amelia never knew of mine when she was winning trophies in softball and kickball. She went to an elementary school a few blocks away, and I went to the one on the other side of town (although it didn't matter much since I missed so often anyways). We went to different middle schools as well. I had never really had many friends in elementary, I was always too sick to play with the other kids, but once I got better I went to middle school and met a few girls who let me sit with them during lunch.

There was Francine, the prissy little French girl who pouted like a fish (her father probably told her it was cute). We didn't particularly like one another, she always liked to pick my appearance apart. "Oh_ Alice_, why _do you_ wear your hair like that? It doesn't help that you're so skinny and short to begin with, wearing your hair up like a little girl. People are going to think you're my baby sister!"

I always rolled my eyes at her comments, reminding her that I didn't dress as elaborately as her and that anyone who mistook us for sisters must have been blind. This seemed to please her, but really it was meant to offend (she overdressed on a daily basis, wearing heeled shoes, stoles, caplets, pins, pearls, and all sorts of fineries that looked ridiculous on a twelve year old girl). She flirted with the boys in our class often and had a new boyfriend every week. She liked boys, but Francine grew bored of them very quickly and treated them as though they were disposable (and at that age she wasn't doing anything that would really force her to stay with a boy longer than she saw fit). Yet she was very smitten with the idea of love, even if she didn't like a single boy in our grade (or the ones above us for that matter). When she received seventeen valentine's day cards that year, Francine read and kept every single one in a small brown box next to her bed. She wasn't completely heartless.

Anya was the second girl who I had met. She told me she was a ballerina, which I doubted at first. She was a stocky little girl, round in the middle and in the face and hands. But there was a smoothness in her movements, an elegance in the way she carried herself and soon enough I believed her. She seemed quite nice, smiling often and saying good things. But she was quite cunning, and just a bit cruel when need be. Also terrifying. One of the girls that sat in front of her had called her fat, and Anya reprimanded her by gripping the girl's arm so hard it bruised purple-black. She had two brothers, one older and one younger. The older one was quite sweet, a bumbling foolish type of boy who was a bit of a crybaby. The younger one was a handsome boy one year our junior, but he was oddly possessive of his sister for some reason. Anya adored both of them either way, and when she talked about her family she always spoke fondly.

Chun Yan was just the same. She adored her little brother and sister, even if they were both annoyed by how overbearing she tended to be. She was a sweet girl, full of energy and always talking about something. But she was a bit blunt sometimes. I liked being around her the best because we were both the same height and size and for once I didn't feel so out of place (although in 8th grade she curved out and I was left being the scrawniest and shortest girl in our grade) She invited us over to her house often, and we would braid her little brother's hair and play dress up with her little sister HK. Chun Yan even taught me how to put my hair up in double buns like she did, but they looked terrible on me. She did ballet with Anya, except she didn't stick to it until high school like Anya did. Whenever we did projects together she would be incredibly bossy and demand everything be perfect. Still, she was probably my favorite out of the three.

Amelia didn't have a consistent group of friends when she went to middle school. She was popular, doing every sport she could and excelling in each one. She hung around the girls in volleyball and had sleepovers with the girls in tennis, she went to dances with the girls in track and went to the movies with the girls in basketball. She flip-flopped friends all the time since she had so many. But Amelia never really had one specific friend she could rely on, no best friend. Even though I hadn't had one either, at least I had a small close-knit group of girls who I could talk to on a more personal level.

She must have been lonely, I suppose.

I met her as I walked to school on the very first day. My parents had decided I was finally old enough to walk by myself and that I didn't need someone to take me. So off I went, my schoolbag slung over one shoulder, when I heard a voice from behind me.

"Hey kid, West lake is that way!" the girl said, pointing in the opposite direction. She looked about fifteen, with curly blonde hair and a freckled face. I could tell she had done all sorts of things that summer from how tan her shoulders were in comparison to the inside of her arm. She wore a bright orange sundress, and I noticed that her front tooth was chipped.

"Excuse me?"I responded, confused.

"You're going towards the _high school_! I know your first day of middle school can be kinda scary, but-"

"I _am_ in high school." I told her, rolling my eyes. Of course I would get mistaken for a sixth grader on my first day of high school. Of course.

The blonde girl laughed, pulling her backpack higher up on her back. "Cute. But really, you should get going. The middle school starts at 7:30 and it's already 7:38."

"I'm not _going _to the middle school, I'm a freshman!" I shot back, looking up at her. She was much taller, hovering above me at about five foot six.

Freckles shook her head. "Nah, no way! For real?"

"Yes, for real!" I huffed, taking my schedule from the front pocket of my bag. I handed it to her. "There, see for yourself."

"Woah, we have first period together!" She exclaimed, scanning over the sheet of paper. "Your name is...Alison?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"Well then. We should get going soon, Alison!" She handed me back my schedule and started walking next to me.

"Well, actually I go by Alice." I said, but she wasn't listening. Instead she ran up ahead of me.

"Hey, wait!" I yelled, running to catch up.

She came to a quick halt. "Aww, shit!" she exclaimed, biting her thumb.

"What is it?"

"I forgot my tennis racket!" she pulled up her backpack, realizing she didn't have it in there either.

"Well couldn't you-" But before I could finish she had already darted off in the opposite direction for home.

"You're going to be late!" I shouted as I watched her run off, but she didn't stop. Freckles kept running, the dress waving every which way as she ran. Her curly hair flew around her face, unable to be contained by the little star clips she wore. As she reached the curb of that street, she stopped running and turned around.

"Hey, see you around Alice!" She smiled, waving a thin brown arm and giving a little wink.

I felt something strange inside my chest as I watched her run off, but I shook it off and kept walking.


End file.
